


Iconoclasm

by DarkShadeless



Series: Iconoclasm [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Character, Identity Issues, Imperial Intelligence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Instability, Nine is not okay, and a drug of choice, getting into a relationship with someone who is deeply attracted to them, mental programming, sex as a means to an end, sociopathic tendencies, though not all problems are solved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:01:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29205528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Cipher Nine is fine. He's just fine.(His companions might beg to differ.)
Relationships: Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Sith Inquisitor
Series: Iconoclasm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144274
Comments: 42
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercuryPilgrim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPilgrim/gifts).



> As an additonal warning to the tags: Cipher Nine is very much not in a good place mentally. That leads to some really disturbing thoughts and, since the story is from his PoV, we'll be along for the ride. He doesn't act on them at any point but he sure has them.  
> For those who know my Cipher: Yes, this is written for Talam but he is not referred to by name. This is a point where he doesn't have one. He thinks of himself exclusively as 'Cipher Nine'.
> 
> On the brighter side: Yare (my Sith Inquisitor) is one of Nine's companions for this! I did the [OC companion meme](https://darkshadeless.tumblr.com/post/641710471338196992/companion-meme-yare) for him over on Tumblr and Talam fell in love instantly xD That is both the best and the worst decision he has ever made.  
> Sidenote to the tags: While Yare is very ace, Talam is very _not_ and incredibly into him. Re -> we are seeing this from Talam's PoV. He's not a dick about it but he is thirsty as fuck.
> 
> Mood music for this fic? Lady Gaga - I like it rough

Nine comes out the other end of the Shadow Arsenal with a smile sharp enough to cut yourself on and screaming inside. But it’s fine. As long as he just keeps smiling, it will be fine. No one but his companions knows him well enough to inch away from him, or throw him suspicious looks. No one will see, no one will know, as long as he just keeps up the act.

 _No one can know_.

The one time Kaliyo asks him what crawled up his ass and died he nearly guts her, still smiling. She doesn’t ask again.

Keeper welcomes him back with the wariness of a zoo-keeper whose nexu ran off and has snacked on the idiots that set it loose in the first place. Every time he holos, Nine can see the ongoing calculation on his face. How far has his agent slipped? Is he off the leash? Is Keeper, himself, still in control?

But Nine keeps smiling and while Keeper doesn’t have answers either way, the chances he’ll act on his suspicions are… acceptable. Nine is his best agent. His greatest asset.

 _His greatest liability_.

But that’s neither here nor there. All he has to do is keep it together. Just _keep it together_ , keep the shards of who he was from coming apart, and if he hides the cracks well enough no one will know. No one who matters.

Missions help. Purpose helps. Nine is an exemplary agent, he has a face for every occasion, a strategy for every objective. If he doesn’t yet, he soon will, and while he keeps moving, while he can keep gluing the pieces that want to come away back on when no one’s looking, he will be fine. Everything is. Just. _Fine_.

He can walk past Imperial soldiers and Republican marks alike and play out all the ways he will kill them in his head, he has done it all his life and he can keep doing it, and it will be fine because Hunter said- Keeper wants-

 _Mind on the mission_.

His target is a lieutenant, today. They have a name but Nine hasn’t bothered to remember it. It’s easy enough to draw them from their squad, relaxing in a shabbier cantina than is proper for a commanding officer as they are. There’s a reason they came and Nine can make sure he fits the bill perfectly.

Barely a drink in and it’s them who shoves him out the backdoor, one hand on his collar, the other halfway in his pants. They kiss with too much tongue. Nine’s back collides with the grimy wall of the alley and he moans. He blows them right there, mind blissfully blank as he chokes on their dick. Then he kills them. He guts their datapad while they’re still busy bleeding out, staring at him with disbelieving eyes.

_Mission accomplished._

When Nine slips into the Ghost like the embodiment of his call sign, the whole ship is dark. Everyone else has gone to bed, or out and won’t be in til morning. He drops the bloody data chits in his inbox like so much junk mail. The intel is already out. There’s nothing left to do but clean up.

Nothing to do. No one to see.

The patchwork of masks he is wearing creaks at the edges.

“Nine?”

Cipher Nine comes back to himself, staring at a blank wall in the common room. His muscles are stiff. His head is empty. He can’t think of a single thing. Can’t-

What was he doing?

“Cipher?” someone says, again, and with some effort Nine turns to look at them. It is telling he can’t place the voice until he is looking up at the only Sith on the ship. Yare, for all of his hulking size, moves with a grace that has him making nary a sound. There’s a frown on his face and Nine feels, absently, like he should be doing something about that but he can’t place what.

Yare approaches him like one would a skittish animal. There’s caution on his face, masking every other emotion. “I wasn’t aware you would be back tonight.”

Back. From… the mission. Did Nine mean to come back? What did he tell them? He can’t remember.

He feels hollowed out. Cues come to him as if through fog. He was supposed to answer that, wasn’t he? He needs to give an answer, the right one-

Yare reaches out, telegraphing the move in a way that a blind man could anticipate it. His touch is a shock of warmth on Nine’s cheek. He draws a hissed breath. “You’re cold as ice.”

Nine can’t move. He can’t _think_. His whole world shrinks to the firebrand on his skin. From one moment to the next he is barely holding himself together. His hands start to shake. He clenches them to fists. It doesn’t help.

Distinctly unhappy, Yare musters him and purses his lips. “You need a trip to the refresher.”

Yes. He does. His casuals are tacky with blood. They stick to his chest with every breath. It’s only under Yare’s scrutiny that the streak of dried semen on his cheek starts to make him itch to rub it off. Yes. He should clean up.

When he doesn’t move the frown on Yare’s face deepens. “Come on,” he says, softly, and the beckoning wraps around Nine like a blanket. He lets himself be tugged forward and doesn’t think again until morning.

Cipher Nine wakes up in his bunk. He can’t remember how he got there.

He lies there, on his side, tank top rucked up to his chest and tries not to panic. Slowly the pieces come together. He went on his mission, ( _Mission accomplished._ ) got home. He… he lost time. He lost time.

 _He’s losing it_.

Yare. Yare found him in the galley. Cleaned him up. A careful, firm touch, pushing him into the refresher cubicle. Warm water. Nine couldn’t figure out how to move so Yare had to make him, he had to do all the work.

His hands were large, gentle. They made Nine’s head go quiet in the good way, not the bad one.

He thinks he remembers being wrapped in a towel but that might be his mind filling the gaps. It’s good at that.

Cipher Nine lies there, heart pounding, pieces all of that together and the only thought that will come is, ‘ _I have to kill him._ ’

_No one can know_.

When he has pulled himself together enough to leave his quarters his crew is already putting away what's left of their breakfast. Kaliyo is obviously done, just hanging around, pad in one hand and incredibly bored. She left the dishes to Vector again. Nine should really put a stop to that.

There’s a lot of things he should do.

 _No one can know_.

It will be easy. If anyone questions him... well. Nine will think of a story, he always does.

Over at the kaf machine, Yare puts the finishing touches to his cup and turns. Their eyes meet and finally, Nine finds his smile. Beautiful, blinding, it turns his pretty face into something you’d find on the cover of a magazine.

It doesn’t reach his eyes.

But that’s fine. All he has to do is keep it together, keep smiling ( _screaming inside_ ) and it will be fine. Yare looks away first, breaks their stare-off, expression unreadable. He adds another lump of sugar to his kaf and stirs it fastidiously. There’s something off about the picture but even if he is suspecting something, he won’t be the first, or last, Sith that Nine sticks like cattle.

_Warm hands, large, steering him and he lets them-_

They grab for his and Nine flinches. His smile falters. Yare is right in front of him ( _when did he move?_ ), pressing a cup into his hands that’s near scalding and-

 _Yare doesn’t take his kaf black_.

Nine’s thoughts are out of order again. He needs his void-damned brain to work, it’s his greatest weapon, and it _keeps fucking him over_ \- His smile has slipped but Yare is big. He’s tall. No one will see, no one but him.

On autopilot, Nine lets him rearrange his fingers, press them to heated ceramic and _he should kill him_ but he can’t kill anyone with his hands full ( _lies_ ). Slowly, he raises the cup to his lips. The kaf is sweet enough to mask any number of poisons and so fresh it burns his tongue.

He swallows anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

The things is, Cipher Nine is falling apart and he knows it. He knows it.

 _No one can know_.

He hasn’t been right ever since he broke the Castellan Restraints and maybe before that, too.

Emperor take Kothe, Hunter, the entire Republic and Imp Int too. If Keeper had told him-

Nine understands. He gets it. If he had known, he might even have agreed to it. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for the Empire. He gave up everything, didn’t he? He’s no one, a Cipher, a number, and he’s fine with that. He was fine with that. What's a bit more programming on top of what he already knew about?

But he didn’t know about the Restraints. He didn’t know until it was too late. And now…

Now he has no idea who he is when he doesn’t have orders.

Everything is fine as long as he has a mission. As long as he knows what to do, as long as he has something driving him, something telling him who to be and what to say. He makes his living giving people exactly what they want and he is good at it. He’s the best. But once he is done… once his hands are drenched in blood, once the targets are dead and he’s free to shed the role he played for them like a soiled coat, there’s nothing underneath. There’s nothing there.

_Mission accomplished._

It didn’t use to be like this. He wasn’t- He was someone. He… he thinks he used to be someone but he can’t remember who that was. He doesn’t even have a name to put to that face.

That… that was never a problem before.

If Keeper finds out just how screwed up Nine's head is, he’s going to have him decommissioned. He probably won't manage that but he will try. ‘Probably’ because Cipher Nine isn’t actually sure he won’t swallow his own blaster if Keeper tells him to. Wouldn’t that be the damnedest thing?

_Just say the keyword and he’ll do anything-_

But having a mission, it’s like being high. It gives him direction, a burst of energy and clarity he can’t otherwise scrounge up. He hates how much he craves it, like a fix.

Sex is like that, too. Nine can go out, hit the town for the night, find someone, anyone, who wants to fuck him and what they want will tell him who he is, for a few hours. It doesn’t matter what that is. If they go too far? Well. What’s another tally on his body count? He can take care of himself.

He can.

But when it’s over, when they’re done with him or he with them, when he gets back… the emptiness crowds in again, as if he is a droid, shutting down.

At least he manages to clean himself up the next time.

A big part of that is setting foot on the Ghost, already starting to unravel at the seams, and finding an echo in the back of his mind that tells him, ‘ _You need a trip to the refresher_.’

Cipher Nine stares at the floor of the galley for a little while, picking at the dirt under his fingernails and investigating that thought. Everything else is fuzzy but that one feels solid. It’s something to do, so in the end he does it. When he is done, direction drained halfway through this extracurricular activity, he pads through the ship on wet feet, his bathrobe hanging off his shoulder at an angle he can’t be bothered to fix.

The floor is cold.

Nine doesn’t know where he is going until he is there.

He can’t find it in himself to knock but he doesn’t have to. A short wait, he thinks it’s a short wait, did he lose time again? and Yare opens for him, already in his nightgown. The only other thing he wears is a frown. “Nine. It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”

Nine looks at him, following the stripe-pattern on his lekku with his eyes. He should answer, he has been asked a question, and _normal people answer questions_ but he can’t find words. After the silence has stretched a little Yare sighs. “Come on in, then.”

His quarters are small. Most of of the rooms on board are but Yare’s especially, since he isn't someone who likes to elbow his way into privileges, unlike a few other enterprising souls Nine could name who have. Probably part of why Yare is, you know, _here_ living in the next best thing to a utility closet, instead of murdering his way up the ranks of his fellow Sith somewhere.

Anyhow, his quarters are tiny. He has still managed to make do. There’s a small desk at the far side. Opposite, Yare has squeezed a worn little couch underneath the top half of a bunk bed. That’s all Cipher Nine registers in instinctive observation before Yare sits down on it, lets himself sink into the cushions and draws him in.

He's a full head taller than Nine, with the bulk of someone who can do some heavy lifting if they feel like it. Nine's not exactly resisting but he's no help either. Yare makes how he handles him feel easy anyway. It's not even awkward. He pulls Nine into his lap, close, and the expectation of the follow up wakes him up a little but nothing comes. Yare just holds him close, dragging his fingers through his damp hair, with Nine’s head resting on his chest. He's warm. 

Slowly, his heartbeat drowns out the echoing scream in Nine’s head. He’s asleep in seconds.

When he wakes up he’s in his own bunk and his mind is quiet.


	3. Chapter 3

Nine, Nine can deal with this. He _can_. So what if it keeps happening, what if he needs Yare to make the noise go away for a while every now and again? It’s fine. He’s fine. Yare doesn’t tell anyone and it’s _fine_.

It’s fine right up until the Void-spawned Star Cabal starts leaking his identity to all any sundry. Kaliyo brings home one of their smear holos and Nine almost breaks his fist on a wall. He doesn’t but the thought is there.

If he falls apart later over a data pad with his face and call sign on replay that’s his own damned business. At this rate the whole galaxy will know who he is. All of them, just not him. Nine has to stifle a bout of hysterical laughter in his pillow until he feels like he’s going to suffocate.

He can’t go out anymore. It’s too risky. He needs to finish the mission. He _has to_.

It’s all he has.

He forgets more of the weeks that follow than he’ll ever remember.

When Nine finally catches up to Hunter, it’s not even about revenge anymore. There’s that, too, but… how do you put into words ‘I wish I could keep you alive so I can torture you forever because you give me purpose,’ without sounding like a complete lunatic?

Yeah. Cipher Nine keeps that one to himself.

Imperial Intelligence is gone. Keeper is gone. There’s no mission, there are no orders and the only glimpse of light on the horizon is that anyone who knew what he was? Thinks he’s dead.

His crew is just glad it’s over but Nine is feeling the floor crumbling under his feet. He has managed to outrun his issues this long but his rope is getting shorter and shorter. And quite honestly? He has no idea what will happen when he finally snaps.

He’s afraid.

So long the thing that kept him going, kept him hanging on to his sanity with a white knuckled grip, was what would happen if he didn’t. What Keeper would do, what Imperial Intelligence would do, what his companions would do, if they smell weakness.

That’s what he told himself at least. It was less terrifying than admitting, ‘ _I don’t know where I go when I’m not here. And I don’t know how to get back._ ’

It’s all he can think of now.

There’s no mission, there won’t be one either, and the galaxy thinks he bit it. Nine takes that small mercy and decides to get smashed. Maybe he'll feel better after someone has fucked his spiralling thoughts to static for the first time in months.

It’s a disaster from start to finish. The alcohol’s too sharp, the music too loud, the lights are too bright. Instead of soothing him and taking the edge off, they wind him tighter.

He props himself up on the bar in a sensual stretch out of habit. Bodies are gyrating on the floor, packed so tight you can’t tell whether they’re dancing or screwing. That could be him. That will be him. He just has to force his lips into the semblance of a smile that won’t look like a threat because he _can’t get out of his fucking head_. Stars, he knows this game. He can play it in his sleep.

“Hey, sweetheart. Can I get you something?” Cipher Nine glances at the guy out of the corner of his eye, a risk assessment turned coy. Annoyance prickles under his skin. Void, what is _wrong_ with him?

“Sure. Gin, no tonic.”

The human laughs. “You like it rough, huh?”

 _“_ You have no idea.”

They don’t even get out of their pants. His one-night-stand has Nine pinned to a table in a side room and is grinding against him in the best way and all Nine can focus on is the edge digging into his ass and that he _can’t kill this asshole in the middle of a cantina room, no matter how much he wants to_ -

What the fuck is _wrong_ with him?

He twists, hooks a foot around the guy’s ankle and flips them. Before the moron is done gasping in surprise, Nine is already out the door. “Hey! Where are you going?”

He ignores him. He also ignores how much his hands are itching for a knife, which is considerably harder. Suddenly, he doesn’t want sex, he wants violence, he wants _death_ , he wants to see his would-be lover choke on his own blood and _this isn’t a mission_ , what the hell is wrong with his head? He has had his wires crossed for a while but not _this_ badly.

 _Shit_. Shit, shit, shit.

He can’t stand being here, with the lights and the noise and people looking at him like he’s a prize to be won. He wants quiet, he wants to be _home_. He wants-

He wants Yare. He wants Yare to hold him and tell him everything is going to be alright. He wants him to make it alright.

It never lasts, but he wants it anyway.

Cipher Nine grabs himself the nearest turbolift and closes it in the face of a wookie whose roar of surprised anger echoes even through the durasteel. The lift whisks him away. For a few precious seconds he can lean against the transparisteel front and curl in on himself, tears burning in his eyes. Then the lift stops and it’s time to pull up his game face again.

For once, everyone is still awake. That’s the very last thing Nine needs to deal with. He ignores the surprised greetings from his crew completely, swallows the urge to put a knife in someone when Kaliyo cracks a joke about how he’s getting quicker on his cantina speed-run and blows past them without a word.

“Wow, what got into _him_? Was it something I said?” echoes behind him and Nine grinds his teeth. He has no patience left, no buffers. It feels as if he’s a mollusc someone has ripped the shell off of and dumped back into the sea without protection. He can’t- he can’t.

Yare’s not in the common room. He’s not in the refresher either. He’s also not _home_ , he’s not in his bunk room, and Cipher Nine knows this because he hacks the fucking door when he doesn’t answer it, for all the good it does him. His heart flutters like a trapped bird. It’s getting harder to breathe.

Nine tears at the collar of the dress shirt he picked for the night until it gives and doesn’t give a damn about the button that pops off and sails under the couch. He needs- he needs-

He throws himself down on the cushions and buries his face in his hands. Void. He’s so gone.

When Yare finds him half an eternity later, he has shed his boots too and curled up around a pillow like a wounded animal. He can’t seem to stop shaking.

“Nine?” Hands, on his back, hesitant, and it only makes the shaking worse. Why is it _worse_? It was supposed to get _better_. He was supposed to make it better. Cipher Nine takes a shuddering breath that edges into a sob. Behind him, Yare makes a quiet sound of surprise, sharp and dismayed. “Oh, Nine.”

He slips onto the couch too and it’s not nearly big enough for two grown men, much less when one of them is Yare’s size, but he makes himself fit somehow anyway. He crowds in close and then he’s holding him and that’s the last thing Nine knows, Yare’s arms around him like a bastion against the world, before he comes apart.

He cries. He… he might have screamed. He feels like he has been screaming for ages. He very nearly blacks out, or maybe he falls asleep, if you can call it sleep when you check out because you’re too exhausted to exist. When Nine comes back to himself, Yare is still holding him and… his mind is finally quiet again.

He’s so tired.

Yare is rubbing a hand over his arm in a rhythmical motion and humming into his hair. Some sort of song. It’s nice. Soothing. After a little while his petting slows down. Nine wishes it wouldn’t. “Are you back with me yet?”

‘ _Are you back_ ,’ like it’s a little thing. An ugly laugh crows Nine’s throat and he swallows it with effort. “If I say yes are you going to stop?”

He barely recognizes his own voice. It sounds terrible. Maybe he was screaming after all.

Yare sighs but he picks up the petting again. That’s good enough for Nine. “What is going on with you?” he mutters, so quiet Nine can barely make it out.

It’s dark, the red-tinged darkness of Imperial night-time aboard a ship. Yare is tall and broad enough that his embrace damn near swallows Nine whole and like this, him on one side and his ratty couch on the other, might be the only time he has felt safe that he can remember. It’s stupid. He’s a Cipher. He’s never safe. He should always be on guard, always looking for the next plot.

But Imp Int is gone, there are no agents anymore, and Nine… “I don’t know who I am.” The confession slips from him, quiet as a whisper. His eyes burn but no tears will come. Nine is so empty he can’t even cry anymore. “If I don’t have orders, I don’t know who I am.”

Hunter did this. Them and Kothe. And Keeper. Him too, even if he didn’t have a direct hand in it. Even if it ran counter to his interests. They opened the door and blew it off its hinges but he made it. He let them in. And now Nine is the one left with the mess they made of him.

He had his own part in it too. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t kept trying to find a way to lie around the Castellan Restraints, a way to get enough breathing room to break free. Compartmentalize harshly enough and you can trick even yourself and then, who will tell you you aren’t telling the truth?

No one. Not even you.

Nine shivers and Yare’s arms tighten around him. He’s so _warm_. It’s a balm, like being wrapped in a huge blanket only better. There’s nothing quite like feeling someone else’s heartbeat against yours. Slowly, Nine untangles his cramping fingers from the pillow he has been clawing at and grasps for Yare’s hand instead.

He’s shaking again but there isn’t a thing he can do about that and he’s too tired to try besides. What’s the point?


	4. Chapter 4

When Nine wakes up, he isn’t in his bunk. He isn’t alone either.

He’s in _a_ bunk, bracketed between the wall and a solid body, and instead of claustrophobia inching in he just feels safe. If anyone wants to get to him they’ll have to go through Yare and Nine will gut them if they even consider that.

His limbs are sleep heavy, exhaustion still sitting bone deep and loathe to leave. Despite that, Nine fights nodding off again. He turns, carefully, so they are facing each other. Yare is still asleep. He’s relaxed with it, the way he rarely is when he is awake. He hides it well but he’s just as ready for an attack at any moment as Nine is. Not right now, though. Now, he’s lax, lekku splayed over the pillow and twitching faintly.

The urge to trace his markings is strong and Nine has never been good at denying himself something he wants for no reason. Yare’s skin is smooth, though the bright color hides small scars. Nine traces the edge of the stripes that bracket his mouth. No, he’s not very good at denying himself. Not if he doesn’t want to.

It’s the easiest thing in the world, to lean in and press his lips to Yare’s softly. They’re full, if a bit dry. He should take better care of himself but Nine hardly feels qualified to preach on that front right now. Yes, he keeps himself in top shape. Is he taking care of himself? He’s not so sure.

The thought threatens to tangle him and he lets it fall away, kisses Yare again. And again. Softly, sweetly, the way he feels someone who touches him as if he needs them to be gentle would like to be kissed. The way he wants to kiss him, feather-light.

It takes a few, before Yare stirs. When he finally does, Nine lets the kiss linger, heart racing. He doesn’t open his eyes until he is _sure_ Yare is awake, doesn’t quite want to look, because-

Large hands come up to cup his shoulders, softly but firm. Yare parts them with gentle force and Nine doesn’t fight it, though his heart turns over in his chest. The ease of sleep has faded from Yare’s face, a slight frown on taking its place. Concern waits in the wings. “Nine?”

Cipher Nine swallows and tries his most winning smile on for size. “Don’t you want me?” Everyone wants him. Everyone and anyone, he can make sure of that, “I can be whatever you like.”

He doesn’t even care. He doesn’t care what Yare wants him to do, he’ll be whatever he wants.

Yare’s frown deepens, grows pinched. In the face of his scrutiny, Nine can feel his smile grow brittle. He’s so _empty_. He just wants to be someone again. Why not try on what he needs to be to be taken to Yare's bed? But Yare isn’t inclined to give him pointers, it seems. He sighs, draws Nine close again, and while that means he holds him it’s not… it’s not… “I would like for you to stop hurting but somehow I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.”

That quiet wish wedges itself under Nine’s skin and levers him open like a clam. His fingers tighten on Yare’s shirt to the point of pain. “What are you talking about?” His voice is light, dusted with amusement. Underneath the thin veneer gapes an abyss. “It's just a bit of fun, right? There’s nothing wrong with fun.”

“So you're doing this because you like it. Because it’s fun.” There’s no question attached to that statement, yet somehow it sounds like it wants an answer.

Too bright lights, the music too loud and it doesn’t matter who fucks him just as long as they do. Just as long as they take him out of his head for a while. Whatever they do to him, he can wash it off later, wash it off, crawl into Yare’s arms and try to forget why he went out in the first place.

Nine shuts his eyes tight, though he can’t see Yare’s expression anyway, with his face buried in his chest. That’s a good thing. It means Yare can’t see _his_ either.


	5. Chapter 5

They don’t talk about it.

Cipher Nine flees the awkwardness as soon as he can piece his façade back together and tries to tell himself he never should have let it come this far. He should have killed Yare ages ago. Before he could learn to see through his masks. Before _everything_. At the very least he should have stopped fucking going to him so he would hold him together, every time Nine felt like he was about to break. He should have gone it alone.

The thought is unbearable.

Stars help him, he has gotten _attached_ , more than he ever meant to. He _needs this_ and it’s terrifying.

There are no missions but the Ghost still needs fuel, the crew still needs to eat and Nine needs money to blow, so he finds himself something to do. In his experience there’s always someone in need of the kind of service he can provide. With a spot of luck he might even further the war effort, though his relationship to the Empire is about as complicated as his feelings for Imp Int right now.

He doesn’t want to end up thinking about any of that, so he packs up his arsenal and goes job hunting. Killing people is easy. A dead guy doesn’t give you a headache, unless their name is Hunter and they fucked with you so thoroughly while they were alive that you’re still chewing on it.

A few assassinations later he almost feels like himself again, whoever that's supposed to be. The hits are his favourite kind too, long-range, waiting for the perfect moment… one pull of the trigger, a body on the floor, and at this distance Nine fancies he can _see_ the way that shot changes the currents of what will happen down below. Strings, once attached to someone alive, pulled by a dead weight and setting a new course.

He packs up before he can get caught waxing poetic like a fucking amateur.

Their disposable cash fund is looking up. Nine’s appetite for extracurricular activities not so much. No bar will do, high class or sleazy. They’re too much, too little, too full, too empty, too boring. Every time someone makes eye contact with him what Yare said about having fun echoes through his head.

The only reason Nine doesn’t stab someone is that he has gotten his daily dose of murder out of his system already. Void. He never killed because he had to, or because he _wanted_ to, he wasn’t like that. It’s _unprofessional_ and one of the few things he’s sure of is that he was always damned good at his job.

He’s going stir-crazy, he is, but even as he spirals around that thought he is uncomfortably aware that he’s more stable today. His mask feels less like a haphazardly assembled pile of shards than it did before. He feels… he feels like he doesn’t… need it. Today.

Nine leaves his last drink on the counter and stalks back out into the night.

He doesn’t need it… does he? There is a fire under his skin, an itch he can’t scratch but it’s different. Not as desperate. He still wants, he _wants_ , but nobody fits the bill just like last time, and when did he get so fucking picky, anyway? He wants-

Wants hands big enough to make him feel small, wants the rumble of a cultured voice in his ear that can make his head go quiet the good way with a hum, where a one-night stand will have to screw him halfway out of his mind to do the same. He wants…

Shit.

It’s not hard. It’s not hard, is it? He’s the best. He can do this. Nine can wrap anyone around his little finger, from politicians to princesses to the most jaded of exotic dancers. There’s no reason he can’t do the same with Yare. Right? Right. He just has to find the right button. Everyone has a lever to pull, he needs to figure out what it is and that will be it. Done and done, easy. He just has to get his head in the game. Yare won’t know what hit him and maybe then he’ll finally have this out of his system.

Just another fuck, right? What’s one more.

Half his crew is out, having their own night on the town, but luckily (or perhaps not so luckily) Yare is not one for partying. Or gambling. Or any sort of fun Nine can identify.

Well, there is _Lokin’s_ kind of fun, admittedly, and by observation alone Yare might be into _that_ but he’s getting ahead of himself.

At any rate, early evening finds the Sith in the corner of the storage compartment he has repurposed into an unholy cross between a lab space and a Force temple and if Nine had needed any proof about how far gone he was the last time he was looking for him the fact that he didn’t even try this haunt would be it.

Yare is _always_ here. Where else was he going to be?

Well. Admittedly, Nine has been kind of avoiding this place. The list of Sith he has met in person that haven’t tried to screw him over at some point is much shorter than the one for those that _have_ and he has had his fill of weird Force magic for a lifetime. Especially the choking. It’s second only to getting shocked out of nowhere. Stars, he hopes that is not the kind of thing floats Yare’s boat.

No big deal if it is, he just really hopes it’s not.

Nine crosses into the storage compartment and a shiver runs down his spine. Yeah, that would be why he doesn’t come here anymore. Getting close to Yare’s workspace feels like he’s walking on his own grave, like entering a Sith Temple and knowing it sight unseen. Yare's partition is at the very back of the hold, lit by eerie green light, and that really doesn’t help the aesthetic as a whole. Neither do the artefacts he has put up. He loves that shit, that much Nine knows at least, and he has been chucking that stuff his way since he figured it out. The less time he has to spend holding onto Sith crap the better and getting his hands on it makes Yare’s face light up like it’s his nameday.

By the look of things he has kept every single piece of haunted junk Nine shoved at him too. They line his workspace on neat shelves and make the whole place look like a witch’s lair.

The last time Yare called it a ‘laboratory’ in earshot of the rest of the crew, Lokin looked like he bit into a lemon. That was kinda fun to watch.

Surrounded by the proof of what he is, Yare seems to be a little taller, somehow. More foreboding.

Neither of that has ever stopped Nine from hitting on someone and it won’t today either. He _wants_ , not to the point where it makes him climb the walls but he does, his gut is simmering with it. He’s going to get what he wants, too. But all in good time.

Nine wanders closer, unhurried, and props himself up on the crates that serve as a partition and shelf both. The proximity to the rock-carved animal figurine on top of it makes his teeth ache.

He smiles.

“Hey, there.” A neutral enough opener.

Yare looks up from the pad he has been studying. There’s a pair of tiny glasses perched on his nose and it looks about as ridiculous as it looks cute. “Hello.”

His lekku curl in welcome and Nine’s wide smile curves into something real at the edges entirely without his input. But that’s fine. It’s even better when it’s real.

Makes him feel like Yare could bend him over his table, right here, shove one of his artefacts up his ass and while he just keeps looking at him like that, a little soft, a little pleased, happy to see him and not trying to hide it, he could do anything to Nine he wants and it will be good. The mental image makes his mouth taste like ozone.

Nine keeps smiling. It’s fine. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Are you busy?”

He’s not. Nine can calculate the exact angle of his priorities just by how Yare straightens from a curve that can’t be good for his back and puts his work down without looking. His smile deepens a little and Nine’s heart twitches. So does his libido. “Just chasing idle curiosities. It can wait.”

Void, he wants it _bad_. He doesn’t _have_ to have it, he doesn’t need it but he wants it. It’s been some time since he felt like this. He needs to be patient, though. Pace himself a bit. It will be worth it. So, instead of pushing right up into Yare’s space the way he wants to, Nine says, “Tell me about it?” and when that lights Yare’s face up with a tiny shock of surprised pleasure it’s almost as good as getting what Nine’s actually after.

Yare, it turns out, has been _busy_. From the crumbs Nine has found on his missions and whatever Yare has managed to get his hands on himself, he has pieced together a whole… new… theory… about… something Force related, Nine isn’t 100% sure of what. He’s no slouch but when Yare gets going it becomes obvious why his Sphere sent him to figure out the Rakghoul plague all that time ago.

If politics hadn’t tripped him up and seen him on the run with Nine’s little entourage, he might even have managed it. Who knows. Just one more nail of proof in the coffin of Nine’s opinion about how the Sith are managing the Empire these days but their loss? Is his gain.

And what a gain it is, because once you _do_ get Yare going about resonant frequencies and sympathetic feedback loops he lights up like a neon sign on Nar Shaddaa. He forgets poise, he forgets to limit himself to the stifling rules of Imperial courtesy with the care of someone who learned to cling to them just to survive another day and it makes him _radiant_. “And see, if you narrow down the spectrum of analysis to the, the fringes of the available frequency- it’s like this-“ Yare gestures, mimes the capabilities of the holo-emitter of a tool Nine has never seen before in his life and couldn’t pick up out of a junk line-up if his mission depended on it, bright with enthusiasm and Nine’s heart _aches_. He can’t stop smiling but for once not because he feels like he will die if he does.

He understands maybe half of what Yare is explaining but he knows how to nod in all the right places. He’s the galaxy’s best audience, has played the part for pompous idiots high on their own importance a million times and here? It’s not even hard. He doesn’t have to feign interest when Yare underlines every other word with a twist of his lekku that’s more expressive than he usually allows himself. It’s almost startling to realize how much he holds back. Nine hasn’t paid nearly enough attention if that comes as a surprise. Shame on him.

But he can pad his personal dossiers on his crew later.

He has been sneaking closer, as if it’s no big thing, testing the limits of Yare’s personal space and… admittedly he has been making a bit of a show of himself. Laughed at all the right cues, head thrown back just enough to show vulnerability. Stretched just so. Bit his lip when things got _really_ interesting. That kind of thing.

Nine brushes a hand through his hair again and he _knows_ he looks good, knows how to make the most of that too, and he’s still in what Kaliyo semi-affectionately calls his “slut-armor”.

She’s not wrong. This kind of get-up has saved his life more often than actual armor has.

Nine is wearing pants tight enough to make moving a challenge and a shirt cut so low that if he had breasts he’d be in danger of flashing someone every time he bends over. Dressed to the nines, a dusting of gold shimmer on his cheeks, and he has to laugh every time he hears the saying. Maybe there’s a reason Keeper gave him the number he did.

But no matter what he does, Yare’s eyes don’t stray. So far, at least.

He gets to the next point of his scientific inquiry and Nine leans in, wets his bottom lip with a flash of tongue. That nets him a bashful twist of Yare’s lekku which should not feel like he has won a prize but at this point it really does. Made bold, Nine reaches out to trace a finger over his arm.

Yare stops mid word. Surprise flashes over his face and takes his carefree joy with it when it melts away. He lets his hands sink. “Ah,” he breathes, quietly, and Nine’s stomach cramps. He doesn’t know what went wrong.

Yare’s expression has not quite closed up, not the way Nine’s can, but no one is as good as him. The edge of rueful resignation that is creeping in makes him feel like he has done something bad.

He doesn’t like it.

“Something the matter?” he angles, playfully, not missing a beat, even as his throat threatens to close up.

Yare smiles. It’s nothing like before. “You are playing me, aren’t you?”

He’s the best. He is trained for this, he has faced accusations like this one from people who could kill him in a heartbeat with no one the wiser and laughed them off. Yare isn’t even harsh about it. He’s soft, exasperation edged in disappointment, and Nine freezes. Every last exit strategy slips through his fingers and deserts him. “I-“

‘It’s not like that.’

‘Why would you say that?’

Even ‘I just wanted to spend time with you.’ would be better than stuttering into nothing at all.

Yare’s expression softens a little more. His lekku are limp, where they were twitching with excitement moments ago. Nine wants to scream. This is not how this is supposed to go. His attention is supposed to be _flattering_.

A feeling on the knife’s edge of anger claws its way up his throat, sharp, _dangerous_ and desperate. He’s not smiling anymore, he doesn’t know when he stopped and-

And Yare reaches out, slowly, to cup the back of his head. His fingers slide through the glossy strands of Nine’s hair, made smoother by the oil he worked in tonight. The sensation makes his eyes flutter shut, heart beating faster in anticipation but… nothing more comes. It never does, with Yare. The stop and go is going to make Nine go _insane_.

He presses closer, throws caution and patience overboard, and plasters himself to Yare’s side. Yare’s fingers tighten in his hair reflexively and he has to swallow a whine. ‘ _Please, please, please_ ,’ beats against the inside of his ribs in time with his pulse but he bites his tongue on it. Nine forces himself to open his eyes, to look, coy as he can make it which is less than he should be able to. “I’m not playing.” Is he? Isn’t he? “I want you.” That at least is true. It _is_ true, even if it doesn’t chase the rueful slant off Yare’s face.

“That does not equal wanting to listen to me ramble about the cross-interference of transitional spikes in Force energy,” he says, dry as dust and the faintest bit painfully amused.

He’s still touching Nine, though, petting his hair the littlest bit and he’ll take it. “It _did_.”

“Did it. So you won’t mind if I keep telling you about my paper, is that it?” He’s not angry, at least. Nine can tell that much. He has never seen Yare angry, come to think, only that one time right after they met, when his research was about to get stolen right from under his nose. Never again. Not really. It’s easy to tell, once you have seen him _really_ angry.

But he isn’t.

Nine can’t quiet tell _what_ he is and it’s throwing him off completely. “I won’t. I won't mind.” He blurts out, graceless where he should make it breathy, give it a twist, _use it_ if that’s all he’s going to get to get his foot in the door. Nine has worked with less.

“Hm.” Yare scratches his scalp lightly. Sensation skitters down his spine like stray lightning. “You make that really tempting, you realize. I could make you sit here all night.”

‘ _Please do_.’

… Nine is pathetic and if his instructors could see him they would laugh at his performance. Right before they’d throw him into a crash course to bang the kinks out of him.

‘ _Use what you have_ ,’ they used to say and all Nine has right now is unease churning in his gut and desire scrabbling to get a hold of him again like it wants to claw its way into his marrow. He leans against Yare, harder, lets himself feel the strength hidden under his robes and slips a hint of desperation into his voice like poison. “Is that what you want?”

It should get him _something_ , some sort of reaction that he can work with, but it doesn’t. It hardly moves Yare at all. All he does is purse his lips, strangely stern, perhaps a little disappointed but in a different way than before. The sting of that sneaks under Nine's guard like a knife in the dark and he feels his act slip.

It goes the way his smile already has and he shouldn’t let it, he _shouldn’t_ , because it leaves his face too cool, his voice too smooth. It pulls the curtain back too far on the calculations he makes every second of every day and no one should ever see that. He can’t bring himself to care.

“You like women, is that it?” Nine tries on for size and it comes out too flat. Hm. He’s not a female. That makes the prospect tough but not impossible.

Before he can map that new angle too far, Yare sighs. “No, I don’t.”

Another plan falls to pieces under his hands. Damn it. “Alright,” Nine ventures, dubiously. “What’s the problem then?”

Is it… him? For some reason that possibility lodges itself into his chest as if it has thorns.

It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t even be a _stopgap_. He can be anyone, _anything_ , Yare just needs to tell him what he wants- Yare sighs, deeper this time, and pulls him in. For a moment Nine thinks he’s going for a kiss. Instead, he presses their foreheads together for a long moment.

Nine, off balance in more ways than one, lets that happen, confused. When Yare lets go he brushes a quick kiss over the place he just touched, there and gone.

“I don’t like sex, Nine. I don’t like sex.”

Oh.

That’s… a problem. That _is_ a problem and not one Nine can think his way around on the fly. Not that he doesn’t try but he’ll admit it stalls him out a bit.

‘ _You haven’t tried with me_ ,’ feels like the wrong thing to say, even if he is _excellent_ in bed. He’s fantastic. That’s an objective truth. Nine has worked too hard on being the best lay he can possibly be to even pretend he isn’t incredible. He does have a bit of professional pride. You can have all kinds of terrible, boring intimate encounters if the people involved don’t know what they’re doing and he _does_.

He also loves sex, even if going out hasn’t… fully… been about that lately. He can’t imagine _not_ enjoying sex. But again, none of that feels right, so Nine picks his way through all of these possibilities and then says, rather dubiously, “You… don’t?”

Yare looks away, untangles his fingers from Nine’s hair to rub at his brow. It makes him look very tired. A spark of guilt twinges between Nine’s ribs but he… he wants to _know_. He needs to know. He… he needs a lot of things and it doesn’t look like he’ll get them any time soon.

Finally, Yare clears his throat, not quite awkwardly. “Yes. You are lovely but quite honestly, telling you about my research is a much more interesting prospect than taking you to bed. A more pleasant one, as well.”

“Oh.” That’s… a thing. That’s a thing Nine has to fit into his view of the world apparently because Yare is watching him with what might be a hint of well-hidden trepidation and he hates it.

He wants to be what Yare wants. But if Yare doesn’t want- And Nine wants- Oh, this is going to give him a headache. It also makes a pit open up in his stomach, slowly but surely, and the least of it is misery. Nine doesn’t dare investigate it in more depth.

… and he is smiling again isn’t he. For once he wishes he wasn’t but he is.

Yare eyes the curve of his lips with a certain amount of unease. “Nine?”

He needs to stop smiling but he can’t. There’s no way he has bitten his tongue in the last few seconds but he can taste blood. “Yes?” It comes out breathy, all sorts of wrong.

“… sometimes I worry about you.”

“You don’t have to.” Earnest, light and entirely true. Still smiling he leans against Yare’s shoulder, languid as a loth-cat and twice as needy. “Tell me more about Force-activated shifts in particle density?”

He can do this. He can. He’ll… he’ll figure it out.

“Well. If you want.” Yare sounds more than a little hesitant but, with a bit of a rough start, he dives back into his observations. Nine lets his voice wash over him and tries not to drown in the hole in his chest. It would be easier if Yare relaxed again, if he forgot himself, like before, and grew bright with enthusiasm but he doesn’t. The awkwardness stays. Every now and again, he pauses, glances at Nine, and the only thing his lekku spell out in tiny gestures are unease and worry.

It makes Nine want to break something. He keeps smiling. It will be fine.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings in the bottom notes.

It’s not fine. It’s very much not fine, even though when Nine paints himself in hopefulness, as sweet as he can make it and asks, “Can I come sleep with you?” Yare says yes.

He gives him a long look, first, that makes Nine twitch inside but at long last he also touches him again which makes him twitch for other reasons. Yare brushes a few stray strands out of his face, draws a finger down his cheek, and Nine is burning alive. He _wants_. He doesn’t need it tonight, he didn’t think he needed it, but this is killing him.

And it only gets worse.

“Alright,” is what Yare says, after he has found whatever he was looking for in his eyes and Nine _wishes he knew what it was_ so he can fake it next time. So he can make sure it’s there. There’s a scream trapped behind his teeth but he clenches them tight, cuddles close, and it’s going to be fine.

It’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, and he forgot what it would mean if Yare did agree to sleep with him. Or maybe he couldn’t remember because it wasn’t like this before. Before, Nine was falling apart by inches, when Yare found him he was always already halfway gone, and honestly, he doesn’t remember shit about how Yare got him into his bunk more often than not.

That should probably worry him more than it is.

Right now he wishes it was like that, he _wishes_ he was crumbling like goddamned tissue paper because then he wouldn’t _know_ , he wouldn’t feel, he wouldn’t-

Yare slides into bed behind him and against all expectations that have driven Nine spare in the last few hours, he’s not shy about it. He pulls him in, hugs him close, broad chest pressed against his back, and it’s everything Nine wanted.

Almost everything. Not quite everything. Not-

His pulse is racing. His heart is pounding against the cage of his ribs as if it’s trying to break free and Nine feels as if, if he stops to press his lips together as tightly as he can, it will jump right out of his mouth to bleed out all over the sheets. 

Yare is wrapped around him like the galaxy’s very best weighted blanket and Nine is hard as a rock.

He can’t come down. He tries to calm his breathing and that kind of works, he has the discipline to bloody choke himself out if he has to, so yes that works, but it doesn’t help. All that means is that he lies there, in the red-tinged darkness that should be comforting instead of a torment, breathing so slowly it’s torture while his blood hammers through his veins at a speed that makes him dizzy.

And he can’t do shit about it. Nine didn’t promise anything, he didn’t even say he’d stop trying to get in Yare’s pants but he knows a bad idea when he’s staring at it as if staring hard enough is going to make it better.

He could grind back. Or… try… something. Something else. There are a lot of things he could try and all of them are going to get him thrown out, maybe permanently. Yare told him he didn’t like what Nine wanted and he took him to bed anyway and if he fucks this up now-

There’s a huff, a soft breath against his neck that’s heavier than the ones before and all Nine can do is not curl in on himself too obviously. He bites the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood. The pain is the only thing keeping the whimper at bay that is trying to crawl up his throat. “I can feel you think, you know.”

That’s Yare’s patient voice. The one he uses when he says things like, ‘That looks like it hurts.’ when he finds Nine in the very back of the engine room, patching up a broken wrist with kolto strips and determination.

How does he always _find_ him.

There’s an answer to that that Nine won’t like but he doesn’t have to think about it because Yare draws a hand over his arm in a long, soothing stroke, soft and warm and he’s going to _die_. He’s going to claw his way right out of his skin.

Yare presses a small kiss to his neck and Nine feels like he’s going to break. In a new way, but it’s going to _hurt_ and the fault lines are already creaking. A murmur right up against his skin, “This usually helps you…” and Yare sounds a little lost, a little confused, and Nine is burning alive and he wants to dig his nails into himself until it _stops_. “But it isn’t, is it?”

No, it’s not. It’s not helping. It’s perfect and wonderful, it’s amazing, and it’s going to be the fucking end of him.

Nine tries to tell himself he wanted this, he wanted it, he asked for it and he got exactly what he signed up for. That doesn’t help either.

After a long, tense pause in which Yare keeps drawing soothing lines on his skin and Nine tries not to _scream_ , he stops. He inches away a little, gives him space. It’s a fucking relief and the absence of it makes the sucking void in Nine’s chest grow another inch. “If it’s not helping you can always sleep in your own bed, you know. You don’t have to-“

“ ** _No_**.” The denial shoves itself out of him with force, never mind that Nine is still half sure his heart will come up with it. That… that’s not a thing that happens. It isn’t, no matter what his mind is telling him. “No, I don’t want-“ Too desperate. Too harsh. He can’t fathom going to his own quarters and spend the whole night staring at a wall, wide awake, with nothing to distract him from picking at the duct-taped pile of shards that is supposed to be his personality. Nine forces himself to breathe, to iron his voice into something cool, something _calm_ , “I want to be here.”

“Alright.” Yare sounds less than convinced. “What’s wrong, then?”

He says it like it’s easy. Like it’s not a big deal. Something’s wrong so they should fix it and go to sleep. Just like that. Nine doesn’t say a damn thing, because he has no idea what will come out of his mouth if he tries.

His back grows cold. That’s why he’s shaking. That’s all.

Eventually, Yare sighs quietly. He reaches for him, slowly, and Nine feels himself being moved but he might as well be caught in a bout of sleep paralysis for all he can do about it. He lets Yare turn him over, arrange him the way he wants him, only the way he wants him is closer. That would be fantastic, the only thing Nine has to avoid is clinging like a damn limpet, if Yare didn’t slot them together like two fucking puzzle pieces. His thigh slides between Nine’s legs, easy as you please, and all the breath control in the world doesn’t help him with how the pressure punches every last bit of it out of his chest.

There’s a pause. “Ah.”

Realization, soft and quiet. Yare doesn’t flinch away but Nine can feel the faint stiffness that takes him. He doesn’t dare glance at his lekku.

Whatever they spell out, after a moment’s hesitation Yare traces gentle fingers over his hairline, regardless. From his ear, to the back of his neck, down over his shoulder- Nine shudders. “I thought you went out.”

Still soft, unobtrusive, never accusing or demanding. Never something he can _react to_ and Nine could give master-classes in playing off others, how to push them away or pull them in. But the first has never worked, not with Yare, and the second. Well. That hasn’t worked out so well either.

Everything he wants just out of reach and Nine’s so keyed up he can taste his heartbeat. That’s his only excuse for how he slips. How he snaps, “You told me not to,” all edges and claws, all of what is bundled up in his chest and shredding him form inside.

Yare’s hold tightens but not in the good way. He’s even stiffer now but he doesn’t pull away. Slowly, in that neutral way he adopts sometimes when Nine is at his very worst, he says, “I told you I would like you to stop doing things you do to hurt yourself.”

It lingers. It lingers, because Nine can’t think of a damn thing to say to that that won’t dig him deeper into this hole.

‘ _So what if I do_ ,’ is at the top of the list. Swallowing it tastes like knives.

“… ah.” Understanding, again, lower this time. More final. Yare reads him like a damned pad. Puts him off balance, like nothing else can, and Nine should fucking stab him right here. He should open him up like a MRE and be done with this glaring hole in his defences only he’s not actually sure what would happen if he did that. There are days Yare feels like a key component to his own structural integrity and if Nine takes him out- if he cuts him out-

Finger dig into his hair, pull, and all thought scatters. Yare leans back, looks down at him, and he can’t see much, he can’t, Twi’lek don’t rate the same kind of nightvision Chiss do, but he looks thoughtful anyway. As if Nine is one of his experiments.

And Nine _wants_. He wants to be something Yare will keep on a shelf even though it’s just a damned rock, something he talks about as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world, and if he just told him what he has to become to be that-

Yare sighs. “Nine.”

He can’t answer. He can’t unglue his teeth enough to make a void-damned sound. Half of that is the way Yare is still tugging on his hair, gentle but firm, the rest-

Yes, Nine is not actually sure what would come out of his mouth and that’s never a good thing.

As if he is sounding out his next theory and still dubious about it, Yare say, slowly, “I don’t think either of us is going to sleep until you get this out of your system.”

Nine didn’t think he could feel worse. He’s a mass of pounding flesh wrapped up in barbed wire with a pretty mask taped on top and held together with a smile. But… that. The thought of going back out, finding someone, anyone, to touch him when he’s already so raw- he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t want- he wants to be _here_. He doesn’t- It bunches up inside of him, the pressure too much, and he tries to keep it in and can’t. “I don’t- I don’t want-“

But if Yare wants him to go, if he wants- then shouldn’t _Nine_ _want_ -

Yare’s brow furrows. He eases up on Nine’s hair in favour of rubbing his scalp, light as a sheet of silk, and Nine is going to _cry_. How does he keep _doing_ this? “You don’t want to go to the fresher and take care of it? You don’t seem very comfortable.”

… oh. The pressure in his chest collapses in on itself in slow-motion. For once it doesn’t leave a black hole behind. Nine isn’t sure what it leaves, something blank and relieved that scares him a little, but it’s not emptiness. He might have preferred that. That light sucking darkness is familiar territory.

“Nine?”

He blinks himself back to the present. “Yes?” tumbles from his lips, as if it’s easy. As if he hasn’t been screaming inside for hours, days, months, trying to keep it in and failing by inches.

There’s a sigh tethering at the edge of Yare’s voice but it’s soft. “Do you want to get yourself off and come back to bed?”

Nine nods, jerkily. He can do as he is told. He can.

Yare rewards him by drawing his fingers through his hair, petting him like a tooka kit and if he was he would purr. Helplessly. Nine almost does it despite not having the vocal cords for it. It curls in his chest like trapped sunshine. "Alright. Then why don't you go do that? I'll wait for you."

Okay. Okay.

Feeling clumsy as a green agent on his first honeypot mission, he disentangles himself. Nine climbs out of bed and pads over the icy floor with silent feet, still only half-there. He doesn't bother with shoes.

The trip to the refresher is indescribably awkward but at least he doesn’t run into anyone.

That might have left some clean-up.

The door closing behind him is a relief, a layer of protection even if it can be sliced. He strips with methodical efficiency. The man that looks back at him from the mirror is beautiful. Bit of a mess, the last traces of make-up not quite rubbed off, but he doesn’t look like someone who is one wrong step away from becoming what Keeper would call a _problem_.

Looks can be deceiving.

At least he isn’t smiling. Nine looks away before he can and steps into the refresher unit. Sonics are efficient but that’s not really what he’s going for. Water it is. It’s too cold on the first try, then a touch too hot and the only reason he bothers correcting it to perfect temp is because Yare would probably want him to.

He hasn’t done this in a while. It’s not that tough, just touch and go from there, but Nine struggles a bit to find the motivation. He _is_ hard, even if he’s flagging a bit, but the burn has faded. Yare isn’t touching him anymore and it makes a world of a difference.

But Nine wants him to touch him again, he wants to go back to his quarters and curl up where it feels safe and quiet, and Yare asked him to get off first so-

He takes himself in hand. A bolt of heat skitters down his spine. It’s less about the touch, about smoothing his palm over his cock and diving into the sensation, than it is about-

 _Yare told him to. He told him to do this_.

Nine swallows a gasp. His next breath is unsteady. Suddenly, he _wants_ , and it’s more than the idle pull of how good it will feel to have some relief. He leans against the wall, buries his face in his elbow and chases that thought.

It makes his mind go blank in the best way, has him whining against his own arm in seconds, and he knows, he knows Yare didn’t mean it like that. But it doesn’t matter. Yare’s waiting, he knows exactly what Nine is up to, and it makes him want to make it _good_.

Makes him spread his legs a little, change the angle, as if he’s being watched. Sparks of pleasure dance over Nine’s nerves. He bites his lip, squeezes his cock a little harder, the way that will make it flush a pretty blue even quicker because- oh. _Oh_. _Yes_.

He doesn’t even need it to hurt.

He doesn’t need anyone to choke him, or fuck him so hard he sees stars, all he needs is the ghost of ‘ _He told me to_ ,’ and he sees stars anyway. It makes Nine want to touch himself just the way he likes it, make it last, pull out all the stops-

Nine works himself up until he’s shivery. Pulls himself right to the edge before cutting back, slowing down on the downstroke and easing up into a gentle pull. Then he does it all over again until he feels like he’s going to go out of his mind and his hand is sticky with pre-come.

Until he has to bite his lip to keep in the begging. _Please, please, please_ -

He’s so _close_. At the next pass he rubs at that spot right under the crown that makes him go a little wild. His toes curl.

Yare would want him to come.

The thought is far away, nebulous, but it kicks Nine in the chest anyway.

He falls over the edge with a choked gasp, comes so hard his legs give out, and doesn’t even feel it when he scrapes his knees on the tiled floor.

For a while his world is reduced to steam, the water pattering down on him and how hard he is breathing. His head is empty.

That’s alright. He doesn’t need to think.

He doesn’t need to think because eventually the shower is turned off and someone scrapes him off the floor with gentle hands. And maybe Nine didn’t precisely _know_ that was going to happen but it means he can not-think a little while longer. It means he is bundled up in softness, in red-tinged darkness and a hug fit to swallow him whole and yeah, he’s strangely okay with that.

At one point, Yare might mutter something into his hair that sounds a little like, “If I tell you we should talk about this, are you going to run off on me again?” but Nine isn’t thinking, so he doesn’t have to have an answer.

Yare sighs, presses a kiss to the back of his head, and that makes everything alright, even if it’s only for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is where we earn that explicit rating. Some disturbing imagery (Nine has a very vivid imagination and it's working against him).  
> Sexy times do not include Yare in person because Yare does not want to be included. His opinion on Nine's nebulous fantasies are not explored but he wouldn't be surprised where Nine's thoughts go.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s alright until the next time Nine needs it but that’s fine. He doesn’t even bother hitting the nearest bar. That should save some time, right? Right. Efficiency is key. He _does_ pretty himself up, though, puts some effort in because he feels like he should. Because he _wants_ to make an effort and this is the only way he knows how.

Admittedly, he also did some research on Force-related nonsense but all he came away with is a hyperawareness of what exactly he has packed into that one corner of his hold via extensive gift giving and he is not thinking about that.

No. Nine is thinking about getting himself _laid_ , or the closest approximation thereof, so he can stop questioning whether or not he’s actually a real person with real blood, who feels things instead of faking them. His mask feels physical today and like a shoddy patchwork he could pick the stitches out of and thoughts like that never lead anywhere good.

So instead of _testing_ that theory he puts on his "armor", he makes sure he looks a treat, and he saunters into the storage bay like he belongs there to hang off of Yare’s arm like the galaxy’s most tempting eye-candy.

It helps.

Yare’s sweet for him and it helps. There’s suspicion lurking in his eyes, there almost always is these days, a knowing, searching glint that makes Nine feel like he sees too much, like he _knows_ too much. But Yare lets him cling, lets him ask questions and he tells him everything Nine never wanted to know about a bunch of crystals he would dearly like to throw out of the airlock now that he has an idea what they’re all about.

It’s great.

It lets Nine worry about _real_ things like just how likely it is he’s going to be possessed by a the ghost of a Jedi in his fucking sleep and whether or not Yare would be mad at him if he _did_ flush this pile of glittery safety hazards down the toilet. He probably would. A pity, that.

Yare mutters something about cleaning up and waves him over to the nook Nine privately calls his pillow fort and his night is looking up even more. It’s at the very back of his lab, out of the splash zone Yare has drawn on the floor with reflective tape, and it… it’s nothing but a pile of blankets and pillows held together by crates, as far as Nine has manged to suss out. There isn’t a single proper piece of furniture in the mix but that makes it _nicer_ somehow.

He folds himself into the cushions, watches Yare put his tools away and there’s something bright fluttering in his chest Nine is scared to look at too closely. But he’s very good at looking away.

If he puts himself on display like the best kind of feast… well. It’s a habit.

It _does_ get Yare to glance his way, even if it only makes him smile and shake his head. The bright thing flutters a little harder. “Like what you see?”

“You are very aesthetically pleasing.”

Yare thinks he’s _pretty_. Looks like his primping paid off. “Why, thank you.”

He’s starting to get the hang of this game. It’s easier, when you know what the stakes are, and Nine plays for keeps. Always.

But he’s still testing some limits, he will admit. He spreads himself out a little more, lets one foot dangle over the edge, and takes up as much space as he possibly can. There’s only one place for Yare to sit, when he’s done washing his hands. Yare takes one look at him and huffs but he’s still smiling. “You’re in a fine mood today, aren’t you?”

“I’m with you.” It comes out entirely coy but for once Nine doesn’t have to put a single thought into making it that way. There’s no place he’d rather be.

Yare breathes a laugh, touched with resigned exasperation but it’s all fond. The bright thing in Nine’s chest has grown so big it’s almost painful. He spreads his legs a little more and Yare gives him a _look_. But he does sit down. He has to push Nine’s hips up a little bit to manage and Nine drapes his leg over his hip as if it’s an accident. The ghost of Yare’s weight alone makes him bite his lip and sigh in pleasure.

“You’re impossible.”

“But you like it.” Nine shoots back, playfully, confidence only faltering after the fact. He covers it with a smile, takes in Yare’s reaction with too sharp eyes.

Yare meets them without flinching, expression soft though the exasperation has yet to fade. He reaches out to tug a strand of hair behind Nine’s ear. Nine shivers. “I like you.”

 _Oh_. Warmth sears Nine from the inside out, makes him flush, and Yare couldn’t have gotten him worked up more quickly if he had reached between his legs and _squeezed_. He _meant_ that.

Nine basks in the glow of it like a pampered tooka. He stretches, languid, as if how that move pushes him up into Yare’s lap isn’t half the point and glances up at his from underneath his eyelashes. “Take me to bed?”

Yare’s smile deepens a little, as does his good-natured resignation to putting up with this game. “I will.” _Yes_. “But first we’re going to talk about this.”

Oh no.

Nine’s good mood evaporates in the closest thing to a record scratch. He goes tense, all over, but Yare has picked this battle well. He has him pinned and he didn’t even have to work for it. In the position he has put himself, Nine doesn’t have a good extraction point that doesn’t get one of them elbowed somewhere uncomfortable and he _could_ get out but _doesn’t want to do that_ and-

Nine is starting to feel like he may have underestimated Yare as an opponent. Like he has stopped _seeing_ him as an opponent and he’s only realizing now that he _shouldn’t have_.

“Nine.”

 _Shit_. He should have never let his guard down-

“ _Nine_.”

Nine jolts, tries to find a disarming grin and fall about a mile short. Thankfully his smile can crawl onto his face all by itself so that doesn’t matter. “Yes?”

Yare is mustering about as dubiously as he has ever seen him. Which, rude. Entirely uncalled for. “Are you alright?”

“Sure. I’m fine. I’m _right_ where I want to be.” He wriggles a little for emphasis. It puts him more firmly in Yare’s lap than ever and while the mood has been a little derailed, sex is a fantastic distraction… only Yare is about as movable by that incentive as a fucking boulder. He just catches a hold of Nine’s hips, makes him stay _still_ in a way that has him hiding a shiver. The expression he is making is even more doubtful than before. Nine scrambles for an alternative strategy and comes up empty-handed. “What?”

“I said we need to talk.”

Yeah he did, damn it all. “Talk about what?”

Yare gives him a long, long look. “It’s going to be like that, is it?” That question is a trap. Nine keeps smiling. “Nine… Why do you keep coming to me at night?”

It’s not the worst thing he could have asked. It’s not even the second worst thing. There’s an easy answer too, a sweet one, and Nine gives it with a bright, bright smile that hides too many shadows, “I like you.”

It has the benefit of being true, too. He likes him. Likes him more than he should.

Yare’s lips quirk a little and it makes Nine’s heart jump. “I like you too,” he says, again, and it feels almost as good as it did the first time. At least it does until he adds, “But I think we both know that’s not why you’re here.”

It kind of is but it’s also not. Nine is ruthless enough to admit to himself that he would go to Yare even if he hated his guts, just as long as he can make him feel less like he’s going to fall apart. He’s not sure it would still work if Nine _did_ hate his guts but… he would still go.

He’s not stupid enough to _say_ that though. That’s just asking for all sorts of trouble.

No, Nine is going to say something else entirely, the perfect foil, just as soon as he has thought of it. That would go a bit quicker if Yare stopped rubbing his thumb over the hollow of his hip the way he is, as if he just likes touching him and has no idea it goes straight to Nine’s cock and takes all rational thought with it.

Kriff. For possibly the first time in his life Nine regrets wearing low-slung pants.

It’s not _fair_.

There’s a certain irony in Nine being the one to lament fairness of all things but he elects to ignore that. It _isn’t_ fair, just like the way Yare is looking at him while he winds him back up, dark and soft and worried. “I want to give you what you need,” he says, low and sincere. A touch of self-depreciating humor creeps in at the edges. “Within reason. I have my limits and I’m sure so do you. But I want to give you what you need. I just need you to tell me what that is.”

‘ _Fuck me. Shove your cock in me and take me to church until there isn’t a single thought left in my damned head, kriffing please_.’

Not on the table. Fuck. But it’s not the frustration that will kill Nine, no, because when he clamps his mouth shut so he won’t _say that_ , Yare continues, still gentling him like a stars-damned mount he has no intention of riding, “And why.”

Why. He wants to know _why_.

No way. No way in all hells to ever exist. Nine’s whole being balks at the suggestion alone. It zings through him like a shock, bounces off the way Yare is holding him down and Nine… Nine will admit he might have hit one of those limits he pretends he doesn’t have right there.

“Nine?”

His breathing stutters. He can barely face why he needs this himself, there’s no fucking way he will say it. How much of that Yare can read straight off his face he has no idea. Some at the very least because the petting stops, kriffing finally, and it’s awful. Yare is frowning, mustering him as if he is trying to look right into him and Nine is… he might panic a _little_.

If that has him borrow from age old tactics to survive SIS interrogation, that’s his business and no one else’s. “You make me feel safe,” he blurts out artlessly. It’s he first thing he can grab a hold of that isn’t-

 _Mission-critical_.

\- what he is _not going to say under any circumstances_. Above him, Yare goes still. Surprise chases the infuriating calm that seems to be his base-line off his features, and that’s good, that means Nine has-

 _Unbalanced the target_.

\- gotten somewhere. He just needs to stay ahead, now, so he forces words past his lips, words he doesn’t want to say but that makes them _better_. It makes them more real because they _are_ real and so is how much he struggles to drag them out of himself. His throat clicks. “When you hold me, everything goes away and I need you to do that for me, I need you to make-“ _my head go quiet._

_Too close to mission objective._

He course-corrects with a stutter that isn’t as fake as it could be. “Make me not think. I need to not think. Please.”

The begging is a nice touch. It gets people hooked like nothing else, especially when your voice breaks on it. Especially when that’s real. He can _see_ sympathy drive its claws into Yare as surely as any poison, see it make him go softer and tank his resolve.

When he shifts his grip to pull Nine into a hug, Nine is prepared. That’s the only reason he doesn’t stab him.

 _Mission accomplished_.

He scrambles for a hold on Yare’s armor, like he can wrap himself in him like a blanket and this is good, this is better. It’s even worth the whole hassle, for how Yare hugs him close and presses a kiss to his brow, soft, sweet and it’s fine, it’s fine. Nine can deal with this. He soaks up the soothing noises Yare makes and _shivers_.

That should put an end to the awkward questions-

Only he did not fall in lo- He did not pick a moron, when his stupid brain decided to latch onto someone to make his escape hatch from reality. Yare holds him, soothes him, but after a little while he sighs. “That still doesn’t tell me what is going on in your head, you know.”

 _Kriffing void_.

Nine buries his face in Yare’s shoulder and _shakes_. This time it’s more real than he would like. He doesn’t say a damned thing. He can get away with this. He _can_. If he’s pathetic enough about it, Yare might even let him.

There’s a long pause, punctuated only by Nine’s unsteady breaths and the way Yare rubs his back to ease him down. “Alright… alright,” he says, finally, and it’s tired in a way that makes Nine hurt a little but not as much as admitting- Yes.

Nine will take whatever wins he can get on this front.

It’s fine. It’s going to be fine.

There’s a fresh chink in his armor, another crack and he’s _so close_ to breaking in a new way. But day to day… for some reason it’s easier to hold the mask together, now, as if the new cracks make old one’s fill up and Nine is scared to look at all of that too closely but he’s good at looking away.

As long as Yare’s willing to hold him through the worst of it, he will be fine.

He’ll be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS NOT AS MUCH COMFORT AS I WAS PROMISED WITH MY HURT, NINE, but I guess that's what the other parts are for >>;  
> (They will be okay. They will. It might take them a little while but they will get there.)


End file.
